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Developing Your Plot – from Author Andy Zach

Free Plotting Lessons Second

‘Developing Your Plot’ is a class I wrote and taught eight years ago. Now you get to learn it all for free, with the new things I’ve learned in the past eight years and through ten self-published books. I’ll give YOU Free Plotting Lessons right now in this blog post, right from the class.

Developing Your Plot – Cast of Characters

First, there’s me, the teacher character,  Andy Zach. If you’re not familiar with my biography on this site, you can go to Amazon, Square, or to Goodreads and find out about me and my books.

Then there’s you, one of many student characters. What have you written? Are you writing? What will you write? Please share your plot/novel/work ideas with me and the class by commenting below.

You MUST comment to participate in this class–or I’ll send the zombie turkeys after you!

That’s my big turkey stick. The carrot is, I will give a free ebook of Zombie Turkeys to one of the commenters!

Start commenting – NOW!

Developing Your Plot – Where Will You Go with Your Idea?

You’ve got your great idea for your novel. What’s next? Authors fall into a spectrum of two approaches. First, there are plotters, who plan out the plot of their book and then write to that plan. Then there are ‘pantsers’, those who sit on their pants and type away until a book emerges–or not. Then there are endless variations between the two. I’m firmly in the first group. If you want to learn the pantser approach, find another author! I can’t even imagine how I’d write that way, and I’ve got a good imagination.

Let’s take my first novel, Zombie Turkeys. I created a chapter outline of the book on my first day of writing it during NaNoMo.

Read my Zombie Turkeys chapter outline:

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Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing – What’s That Like?

Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing – What’s That?

Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing
Chapter 1 Icon of Paranormal Privateers – click to buy now!

Where does one begin Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing?  With the hook!

Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing
A pirate hook for Writing Paranormal Privateers First Draft

Here is my actual first line hook and the rest of the first paragraph:

Dirac sighed with relief when the US flag came down and the surrender flag went up on the mast of the titanic luxury yacht. He didn’t mind firing rounds from his AK-47 over their heads, but he hated killing people. He knew they were only infidels, but they were still people.

The reader learns: 1) a US yacht is surrendering; 2) the pirate’s name is Dirac; 3) He’s ready to use his AK-47 on them; 4) The pirate considers the US citizens infidels.

More questions leap to mind immediately. Don’t you want to read the next paragraph? This whole scene is here:

So I wrote the whole chapter pretty quickly. It’s a lot like performing magic: you lead the reader to expect one thing and then you make the opposite happen. I begin with the readers learning about zombie invincibility–and then put them in a seemingly impossible situation to escape.

Sometimes I lead you to expect a big fight and then all the villains escape. Sometimes I lead the reader to expect another adventure just like the last one–and have the heroes rescued by someone else.

Then just as you think you have the pattern of the chapter adventures established, I change all the rules of the game and add completely new and different villains.

Oh, I love writing!

The Work of  Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing

It’s not all lollipops and roses.

By writing 4700 words on November 30th, I met my NaNoMo goal of 50,000 words by November 30th. But I had only completed five or six chapters!  My outline said I was only half done!

Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing
The Chapter 5 London chapter icon – what could it mean? Click and find out!

I assumed I would finish it in December, despite the Christmas holidays. But I was wrong. I only wrote about 15-20,000 words.

I gritted my teeth and set my will to finish the first draft in January 2018. And I did. But I had to work at it.

This is what no one tells you about writing. Even writing a fun book like Paranormal Privateers and knowing exactly what I was writing in each chapter, it is still hard work to write.

Another thing: no one tells you that after six hours of writing you’re wasted. Your brain can only handle television or Youtube cartoon videos.

What comes next after Writing Paranormal Privateers First Draft?

The second draft! But I’ll cover that in the next post.

Paranormal Privateers First Draft Writing
Chapter 16 icon – London – Click to find out what happens!

For now, here are some of my best finds from the internet.

The Best of the Andy’s Internet

Let’s start with some science fiction story fuel in the following article:

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Starting Paranormal Privateers, a comic zombie novel

New Zombie Book Review

Starting Paranormal Privateers, a comic zombie novel

So, how does one begin Starting Paranormal Privateers? I gave the germ of the idea at the end of My Undead Mother-in-law:

My Undead Mother-in-law
Get your print copy of My Undead Mother-in-law by clicking here!

Slight spoiler follows:

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